


there is no us (never was and never will be)

by twentyeightt



Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M, Moving On, break-up, getting over it, they dont end up together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21796627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twentyeightt/pseuds/twentyeightt
Summary: Sander is a feeling. One that Robbe can't get rid of. The memories of him are stuck on loop in Robbe's head, and no amount of burying the thoughts surrounding him make life easier. Because everything is now either before or after Sander, every little thing seems to relate back to him in some way or another. And Robbe is only able to force himself to move on after he confronts that fact.Or: the one where Robbe gives up after the voicemail. Where him and Sander never reunite, and life falls back to the way it was before.
Relationships: Sander Driesen/Robbe IJzermans
Comments: 14
Kudos: 57





	there is no us (never was and never will be)

In all honesty it's surprising to Robbe just how easily the memories of Sander begin to fade. As the little details of their short time together begin to disappear. Like when Robbe realises Sander's t-shirt (the one he left at the flat) no longer smells like him. And the realisation that his laptop's desktop is too much to look at sometimes, too overwhelming to comprehend after long days at school- so Robbe changes back to what it was before. It’s the little erasures of Sander that keep piling up to the point that Robbe questions if he was even real, that maybe he was just some wild fever dream that gave Robbe an excuse to come out. Robbe makes it worse for himself of course, he doesn’t check Sander’s Instagram anymore, he forgets he still follows him after a few months, and upon looking at his own feed the picture of the pair of them together sticks out like a sore thumb. Too comfortable and bright. The awkward questions about what happened between the pair of them, the ones he’s been getting for months, always seem to point back to that picture. Little comments like 'But you guys looked happy!' and 'Oh, sorry, I thought you two were still together from your Instagram' are all starting to get too much. So, on a night that's a little harder than others, he deletes it. And the pressing of a red button feels so official. As the screen turns to black, with the picture of them both fresh on his mind, Robbe realises all at once that Sander and him are probably never going to have another moment like the one in that picture again. it kills him, but confronting that fact so starkly makes life a little easier for a while. 

So, bigger changes, like the news that Sander and Britt got back together doesn't hurt as much then. It’s a dull ache rather than the sharp pain it would’ve been when everything was fresh a few months ago. Like back when Robbe still lingered on the memories of Sander's eyes and his touch, just to torture himself. At school, Robbe pretends not to see Britt's smug smiles, or hear how she drops Sander's name in Robbe's proximity every once in a while, just to remind him that she won. Just to rub salt into his wounds, and to hammer home that Sander chose her and their love was so fucking real. He scrolls pasts the pictures she posts on Instagram of him so fast sometimes that he doesn't see the forced smiles or the vacant looks. And how happiness never quite reaches Sander’s eyes. In Robbe's head he knew Britt was always destined to win, she was everything he wasn't. She was in control, a girl who'd push so hard to get what she wanted rather than folding the minute things went down hill, collapsing into herself like a building being demolished. Britt was the type of person who wouldn't take no for an answer, who wouldn't have let things end with a voicemail. Who wouldn't try forget the only person who'd ever made her feel something.

Robbe doesn’t notice that the mural had been painted over at first. He'd been avoiding looking at it for months, pretending it merely didn't exist, while ignoring the way his friends eyes drifted over to it whenever they went to skate. The boys knew not to talk about Sander, that Robbe would burst if they even mentioned his name, his fragility being so evident even without any prior warning. His friends didn't know how it ended, just that it had, and that he was moving on- slowly. But the day Jens' hesitantly pointed out the new mural covering the old one, splashes of blue twisting into a reaching hand that was so Sander it hurt, was the day everything seemed to pile up. Intense yellows and oranges smothered by an icy blue was something Robbe never knew could look so heart-breakingly beautiful. Of course Robbe shrugs it off in the moment, revelling in that overwhelmingly dull ache- the one that blossoms in the pit of his stomach just for a second. All while Jens pulls that sympathetic face, the one you'd give to wounded dog, the one that makes Robbe feel small. He barely saves himself from coming undone in that moment, but cant hold it together the second he falls into bed.

It was strange, because erasing Sander from his life had become so normal now for Robbe. Like a chore, hard to do but inherently necessary. He spent his days chipping away at the past and hiding the broken pieces under a mental rug, like it was some sort of fucked up pastime. The realisation that Sander was doing the same to him, hiding the pieces of Robbe that he'd kept, the one's he'd stole, was the final straw. And for the first time in months Robbe's mind wondered back to the voicemail, Sanders tired voice severing ties, and for a split second he accepted that none of what they had was real, that their love was manufactured, stale and past its sell by date. That Britt was actually 'the one' for the boy Robbe loved. The tears came with ease that night. 

They were big ugly tears, loud and unrelenting sobs. The way his body shook, it was like Robbe was trying to forcefully expel any last trace of this chaotically delightful boy. The one that span into his life and left a mess- a pile of broken glass and emotional garbage for Robbe to painstakingly pick up, having to endure getting stabbed by the shards along the way. In those long moments, he loathed Sander. As he muffled his cries into his pillow, the one they'd shared the nights Sander stayed over, his sorrow mutated into hatred. Just for a brief second. Robbe hated everything about Sander; his face, his hair, his jacket, his smell, his eyes, his boots...every little detail that Robbe had sworn he would memorise on a blissful day months ago.

And as the hate subsided, contorting itself into the ache of longing, there was still an undeniable warmth in Robbe's chest as the memory of Sander, with his reckless grin and charcoal covered hands, surfaced. Snippets of his face being so close, the way his eyes lit up when he spoke, the feeling of his lips and hands everywhere, a compilation of misery- a reminder of what Robbe had lost. Sander was a feeling. One that Robbe was growing to despise, but bathed in nonetheless. A feeling, that deep deep down, Robbe knew he could never get rid of. Like a stain seeping into the fibre of his being.

Because this boy had seeped into his bones, like a chill, and would never move. Because Robbe wouldn't let him.

**Author's Note:**

> so that was angsty as hell. sorry. also, this is my first ever fic on ao3...welcome ig! i might add to this in the future, maybe write a sequel but im not sure. this fic came as the result of late night giddiness and frustration towards the end of the end of episode nine, purely written on a whim.


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